Someone at Bandai must have realized that there is a lot of easy reuse potential in a highly desired show like Sailor Moon or something, because there has been a slew of releases in the Figuarts line for this popular anime in recent years. Sailor Moon is definitely one of the most well known classic anime properties. It seems to have opened up the gates a bit for other older titles. We’ve been getting figures from Ranma 1/2 as well. It makes me wonder how long until they start doing Figuarts of Tenchi characters, another popular title from that era with a ton of characters.
The Sailor Moon line up started of course, with Sailor Moon herself. Which is of course the obvious choice, Usagi is the title character after all, if there was only one figure, she’d be the one to be made. There have been a few rereleases of the original figure and a few variants such as Super Sailor Moon and Imposter Sailor Moon.
The figure stands around 5.5″ tall and has all of the ball joints and double jointed articulation you’d expect from a Figuarts toy. There are 6 faces included 5 pairs of hands. One of the hands has a disk effect part attached to it to simulate when Usagi removes her crown to throw it for an attack. She also includes 2 Moon wands, one lit up and one not, and a special Sailor Moon themed Figuarts stand.
Usagi also include a little figure of her cat Luna. Luna has a bit of pose ability in her tail and neck, though getting her to stand up is trickier than it really should be.
You’re going to need that stand too. As nice as the figure looks, her long skinny legs and heels don’t give her any stability. It’s possible to get Sailor Moon to stand up on her own, but it’s not always easy.
A few other downsides I’ve come across. First, her hands have a tendency to fall off sometimes. It’s not a constant problem, but it happens. Second, I seriously worry about breaking her hair off. Usagi has her trademark Odango hair with long ponytails. They are made from a very stiff slightly transparent plastic, a type of plastic that, in my experience, tends to easily snap off if pressure is applied in the wrong direction.
Overall it’s a nice figure, but I worry a bit about it’s long term survivability. There isn’t a lot that could be done about the balance issue, the design looks like the character on the show, giving her different shoes wouldn’t match what Sailor Moon is supposed to look like, and that’s about the only solution there is to that. Mostly I kind of wish there was a bit of give to the hair pieces, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them breaking. In the end, it’s just nice to finally have an option for a good figure of an iconic anime character. Most of what has been put out for Sailor Moon in the past were Barbie style dolls with a pretty mediocre likeness, even in the Japanese market.
